


No One Lives Forever

by DryadOffical (HalfDryad)



Category: Red Valley (Podcast)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Crying, Gen, Introspection, No Dialogue, set during While You Were Sleeping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:08:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28075956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HalfDryad/pseuds/DryadOffical
Summary: There’s something about working for a group of people who you know, if given the opportunity, would kill you if you said the wrong thing or talked to people about the job you did at length. Now it really wasn’t a problem for Gordon, not really. He didn’t really have any friends, work friends maybe, but that was about the most of it. Well had work friends would be the better thing to say now. There was Warren. Could that really count though? They knew each other for all of a few weeks. Gordon sits back in the uncomfortable chair at the desk he had, picking at his cuticles as he thought about everything that happened so fucking fast, and he hated it all, just a little bit.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	No One Lives Forever

**Author's Note:**

> Hello to the current like 5 people who listen to this podcast, I'm simply in deep and constantly thinking about Gordon :) I'm very sad about it all :) I teared up a bit writing this ngl

There’s something about working for a group of people who you know, if given the opportunity, would kill you if you said the wrong thing or talked to people about the job you did at length. Now it really wasn’t a problem for Gordon, not really. He didn’t really have any friends, work friends maybe, but that was about the most of it. Well _had_ work friends would be the better thing to say now. There _was_ Warren. Could that really count though? They knew each other for all of a few weeks. Gordon sits back in the uncomfortable chair at the desk he had, picking at his cuticles as he thought about everything that happened so fucking fast, and he hated it all, just a little bit. 

Maybe not a little bit, a lot a bit. Couldn’t they just go back to when they were nerding out over Sonic 2 and all that shit? Something that was better than now, that would be good for a long time. Where he didn’t have to think about the one fucking friend he had in years, was in a cryosleep for who knows how long, until way after Gordon was probably dead or old as hell. He takes a moment to press the heels of his hands to his eyes, willing away the tears that welled hot in his eyes. He hated crying, didn’t do it a lot, but everything happened so fast, and he was just getting around to processing the fuck fest that was his life in the last god damn month or so.

So he goes about his day. Archiving, talking to Blue, yelling at geese, and trying not to think about the only friend he had and how he’ll never see that man again. He reads about birds, he wanders around the complex talking about anything that’ll come to mind. He listens to tapes with Warren’s voice on them and tries to be as professional as he can and not get emotional over it. 

It’s hard. It really is. There’s one time where he can have some alone time, so he takes a bottle of something cheap and gross and drinks himself to oblivion with it and curls up on his bed and has a good cry, because he’s an adult, a grown man, why not cry over something for once in his life? Gordon woke up the next day, head hurting from both a hangover and because of how much he cried, tried tear tracks on his cheeks and stains on his pillow. He hasn’t cried that much since he was a kid, and so he buries that deep, and gets back to archiving like he’s being paid to do. 

  
  


It’s three years into being there, and while Gordon has sorted through all the important things they gave him, and even some of the not important shit that was there, he still does odd jobs here and there for Red Valley, whatever they give him. Because it’s easy work, it’s easy for him to mindlessly do most of it, and it gives him a steady paycheck and a place to live even if it is kinda shit. 

Gordon goes out, he meets people, makes friends, talks about his job in the vaguest sense, and he goes about his life. He’ll visit the weird place where they’re keeping Warren and pace the floor and talk to the wall, like he’s talking to Warren, talking about his day, the things he’s been doing. Tells Warren about the friends he finally has in a way, about how he hates he can’t tell them about his job, and tells whatever semblance of Warren that’s there about the guy he’s seeing. Tells Warren how he hasn’t dated in literal ages, too caught up in his theories about Red Valley and other shit similar to it because he knew that stuff well, but he was trying to mellow out, enough to date again. He didn’t know if he was ready, but the guy was nice and cute enough. Dealt with his shit and threw it right back at him. Gordon liked that a lot. 

Gordon talks and talks until his throat is sore and his voice is shot to shit and then he sits down on the floor, his back up against the wall, and he just thinks. Thinks too much and gets into his own head about things in the past and how he wishes things were different. Not just for himself, but for Warren to. How things may have been different even if Warren didn’t go to jail, how if none of this happened. Yeah they wouldn’t have met, but that was probably for the best, right? 

Hell, maybe they would have met somehow, in the end. A different meeting between them both that would be better, where no one knew about Red Valley and the things it was doing, where maybe they could just _be friends_ without anything else coming in the way of that. They’d drink shitty beer, play the old Sonic games and cheat when they got pissed off, and things would be better. 

Gordon goes back to his little office to keep working, even though he knows he should get at least a little bit of sleep, but really, he’s not feeling up to sleeping at the moment. Better to do busy work than get stuck in his head while he tries and fails to sleep, then dream of shit that will never happen no matter how much he just wants to beg for it to happen. 

Gordon goes to sleep and wakes more tired than when he went to bed. 

He does his job. 

He tries to keep his job quiet. 

And he does, in the end. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! If you'd like to recc something from me you can find me @transjonmartin on tumblr and @HalfDryad on twitter! I really love this show and would love to talk on it, that and other podcasts!


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